Cheney-Rumsfeld "Cabal" alleged in the USA

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's chief-of-staff, is attracting news headlines around the globe [1] by publicly accusing members of the Bush administration. He said in a speech at the New America Foundation: "What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."

Regarding Karen Hughes's attempts to improve the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said. "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences" said the man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early 2005.

Wilkerson also described President Bush's behavior as "cowboyism" and Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak."

The colonel described Colin Powell as "the world's most loyal soldier," but said he felt his loyalty belongs not to the administration, but to the country.

An email allegedly from Powell told Wilkerson: "Don't characterize my loyalty."

Sources

AFP. "Former aide to Powell opens fire on US administration" — Yahoo News, December 24,2005

Dana Milbank. "Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes" — Washington Post, October 20, 2005

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.